Arbit stuff you really don't need to know

- My speakers died. I'm listening to Yahoo Launchcast Adult Alternative with my headphones. My ears hurt.

- I seem to need to shit after every meal. I don't know when it went from once daily to evertime I eat. It stinks. I don't mean that just literally.

- Inspite of having my headphones on, I can hear Shania Twain yelling upstairs. I used to like her a lot. Now I find her too annoying. Too damn cheery.

- I watch too much TV. I have seen more TV in the last week than in the last 2 years. And almost all of it has been Animal Planet and Discovery Channel. How many "Mating habits of the Wildebeest" and "Predators!" can a person watch? A lot. Globe Trekker has this new guy. Zak Harding. Cute. I think he's new. I have not seen him before. I last saw Globe Trekker when it was Lonely Planet, I think 4 years ago.

- A friend is watching 'The Ring' on TV now. She wanted me to watch it with her. I was too chicken. I told her I didn't want to because I have already seen it. I have. But still, I chickened out. Naomi Campbell is creepy. That son of hers totally freaks me out. I don't mind the ghost so much.

- Somebody told me that the thought of me working was funny and they couldn't imagine me like that. Should I have been insulted? I agreed with her.

- I like The Rasmus.

- I am going to buckle up and watch King Kong now.

Tada

Spoilers ahead.

Rang de basanti was damn good. The best couple of that movie was not Amir Khan and Alice Patten; it wasn't even Madhavan and Soha Ali Khan; it was 'Lakshman' and 'Aslam'. They tried to ignore the attraction initially; they fought a lot, they even ignored each other for a while... but after being lathi charged, they gave in to what the rest of us saw as inevitable. They made a really hot couple. They acted together, ate together, even died together. Tho Thweet. 'Aslam' was all poetic, artsy studliness and 'Lakshman' the strong, silent type.

Jokes aside, it was a good movie. They even cried realistically. Siddharth made a great cynical, spoilt rich kid battling his demons and Sharman Joshi was cute without being nauseating. When it started, I thought, "Oh no. Not another 40 yr old man as a college wannabe playboy !". I am so thankful it didn't turn out that way. God was kind. It is not an Aamir Khan movie the way Troy was a Brad Pitt movie. Thank the Gods! The Bhagat Singh interludes were also interesting. Some of the scenes seemed as if they had been lifted right off 'The Legend of Bhagat Singh'. Maybe they were going for the 'imitation is the best form of flattery' defense.

It was also a good movie because it had one dead politician and a dead crooked bureaucrat, both of them didn't see it coming. Yay!

Murder and Mayhem! Riots! Shiny people turned into emotional wrecks! Great Songs! Fooooood! Corruption! Power to the young people! Perfect recipe for a great movie.

P.s.: Love the United States Postal Service ad on Launchcast. "... right now you have managed to convert your computer into a very expensive... radio."

Sun temple

Is it a weird coincidence that there is a Sun Temple at Konark, Orissa (13 century AD) and a temple dedicated to the sun god Aten at Karnak, Egypt (16 BC)?

A thousand apologies.

I am being besieged by pop ups. No popup blocker seems to be able to do the job. It's weird. Google toolbar was enough in the past. Now I get popups, spyware, adware, ugh. There is no end in sight.

I finally saw The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Loved it. All of it. Why did they start with this one and not The Magician's Nephew? I really want to see Diggory and Polly.

Sometimes, I think I need to grow up. Then it hits me that being grown up would mean I would become like my parents, uncles or aunts, and while I love them all dearly, I don't want to be them. Then, I wonder if this is as grown up as I get. Scary thought. Look out world.

Did you ever wonder what you would be like when you were all grown up? Who you would be like, what you would look like, what you would be? Does what you are now even remotely match what you thought you would be like? Is it too soon for me to be worrying about this?

Enough.

P.S. I really really, really really, really hate it when people write dis, den, dat and der. I hate it when they say it and think that they are being cute. I want to kill them when they write it. Am I being a little to whiney about this? Do not say yes. If you are even thinking yes, stop. Because it bothers me. Really really. And it is not really wrong to start a sentence with a because. Sometimes it sounds right. And sometimes, I am right because I say so.

P.P.S I saw 6 episodes of Mind Your Language this time in chennai and kodai. Awesome!

baack!

It has been a loong day. I got out of the house at 6.15 am to catch the flight to hyderabad flight, spent what seemed like barely any time at all flying and forever in hyderabad airport and then caught the plane to bhubaneshwar and now I am sitting in my very cool room in the hostel. I hate airports. The coffee sucks in both the chennai airport and the hyderabad airport and they are both too crowded and noisy. The temperature seems to have gone up by 20 degrees since the time I left. But it is a lot cooler in my room though it smells like old clothes in here.

It seems like I left for chennai only yesterday. The train journey there seemed mercifully short. It must have been all the sleeping I did. There was this really annoying guy who kept pestering me with questions about CAT. What the hell do I know about that? It's not as if I studied all that hard for it. Ugh.

I spent 2 days in chennai, 3 days in kodai & another 2 days in chennai. Met the new nephew. Damn cute. Another nephew/niece on the way. The cuz looks ready to pop any day. Watched a lot of cricket, ate only at home, didn't meet many friends, didn't go out much. I just wanted to stay at home. Even when I was in Kodai.

In Kodai, did the morning walk thingy, went boating with my aunt and niece. Went horse riding with the niece. The poor horse. Uttara is great fun to be with. Except when she wants me to do everything with/for her. It was great fun watching Ice Age and Alice in Wonderland with her. I didn't enjoy getting her to eat. The kid can be damn stubborn. I already miss her.

I saw this most horrible Steven Segal movie called Out of Reach. It was like a parody of an action movie. Only it wasn't. Disgraceful. He was doing a Don Corleone voice all through the movie and it was really gross. I was very relieved when there was a power cut. I could have got up and left, but it would have been like chickening out.

What else? I wanted to write something particular when I started, I dont remember what. I read Catherine de Medici's biography on the plane. Brilliant book. (Tara, if you are reading this, I told perima I'm taking it.) I bought Bob Woodward's PLan of Attack in the Hyderabad airport. It's about how Bush et all planned the Iraq war. It makes Powell look like an unheard voice of reason - initially unsure and then slowly he also got converted, Cheney and Wolfowitz seem like they were foaming at the mouth for a war, Rumsfeld and Franks as resigned to a war from the begining and Bush seemed to have just made he decision at the beginning to go to war, andeverybody else made it possible. Interesting read. I have gotten to the part where the British media calls Blair Bush's poodle. We all know what happens after that. It's weird, reading a book where you already know what's going to happen.

I'm hungry. Air Sahara food is better than Indian Airlines food. But then, hospital food, prison food or no food would be better than Indian Airlines food. I bet the food in my aunt's fridge after it had not been closed properly and left for 4 days would have tasted better than that idly and pink upma and sambar that they gave me for breakfast. Thank god they couldn't spoil the water and the Alpenliebe.

I went out for dinner today, to a south indian restaurant. Why, I don't know. I am going to be in Chennai the day after tomorrow after all. But anyway... I had coconut rice. I had other stuff too, but it is the coconut rice that has stuck in my mind. And my mouth. And my nose. No, not literally. Does coconut rice have to be cooked in coconut oil with such an over-powering smell of coconuts? Oh god, the smell! I can't still feel the smell. It is almost a solid presence in the room with me now almost an hour after I have had it. And had coffee and sonf and gargled and stuff. You can imagine how strong it must have been when I was actually having it. The funny thing is, I was the only one who felt it was too much. Is it possible that some people have better olfactory senses than others? Is my nose compensating for my short sightedness or something? Anyway, it tasted good, in spite of everything else.

It would be nice if they made coconut rice less coconutty.

P.s. For the past few days, I have noticed that mosquitoes flying in front of my comp seem to get stuck to it. Pulled toward the screen and stuck. Backwards. Their wings are stuck on the screen and their legs in the air. I have to pull them off, or they stay stuck. Static? Why haven't I noticed this before? But the really weird thing is that I leave my comp on when I leave the room and I have not seen any mosquitoes stuck on the screen when I come back. Does it happen only when I am in the room or do they get released when the monitor shuts off on power save or do they mosquitoes wiggle and release themselves after a while of being stuck?

We just had this most amusing presentation by a software company that shall remain unnamed. Both the presenters seemed very nervous and were stumbling over their words. They said, and I quote, "project the manage", "six point four zero point eight two lakhs", "blah blah blah", "Do you have any questions to aks" and "It will not be a complete deks job". Both of them said blah several times.

By the way, I got a job. In an IT company that shall remain unnamed in the blog. I don't want to get dooced before I even start. Here, the company shall be called, "World Famous In India" or WFII.

I am going to chennai. And from there to Kodaikanal with the 'rents, the annoying sister, an aunt and an uncle. Yeah, and the cook, the driver and the dog. One of the three are not coming. Guess. I'm back in Bhub on the 18th of Jan. I'll try to write more. It's just that nothing has been happening and I always very drained out doing nothing. I saw Equillibrium and Bowfinger and Calendar Girls and Serenity. I didn't recognise Christian Bale in Equilibrium. Why does Sean Bean not get any good roles? The guy is always stuck with sidekick or 'bad guy who gets caught' roles.

I'm rambling. I'm going to have something to eat. tada.